best monitoring solution for proxmox? Zabbix vs Nagios
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just use whichever you prefer or the one that integrates better into your IT environment (Youd want to be monitoring everything.).
Also a general reminder that nagios is quasi-dead. You want icinga(2) instead, which is a fork / vast improvement over the 1-man project nagios.
Also a general reminder that nagios is quasi-dead. You want icinga(2) instead, which is a fork / vast improvement over the 1-man project nagios.
based on this, cinga is more active.. sounds like a good place to start
https://www.openhub.net/p/compare?project_0=check_mk&project_1=Icinga&project_2=Opsview+Core
https://www.openhub.net/p/compare?project_0=check_mk&project_1=Icinga&project_2=Opsview+Core
We are using OPSview Core (free version) right now, but I'm looking for other open source or free solutions.
PRO: easy
CONS: Limited in features.
doesn't have autodiscovery (very important for me to be updated of my own infra because is constantly changing)
There was no possible to use the Android app.
OPSview now is just offering the Atom (free) full version but just for 25 devices.
I was trying zabbix, and was not so easy to start using it and depend so much from the agent. Very lighweight.
Giving a try to Zennos, I liked because its agentless based, It works with snmp, ssh, etc. Very good GUI, runs under Java so it needs 4 GB minimum and is heavier of course compared to Zabbix. I liked like a real enterprise complete solution, and was not so dificult to learn.
I would give a tray to Icinga too.
PRO: easy
CONS: Limited in features.
doesn't have autodiscovery (very important for me to be updated of my own infra because is constantly changing)
There was no possible to use the Android app.
OPSview now is just offering the Atom (free) full version but just for 25 devices.
I was trying zabbix, and was not so easy to start using it and depend so much from the agent. Very lighweight.
Giving a try to Zennos, I liked because its agentless based, It works with snmp, ssh, etc. Very good GUI, runs under Java so it needs 4 GB minimum and is heavier of course compared to Zabbix. I liked like a real enterprise complete solution, and was not so dificult to learn.
I would give a tray to Icinga too.
If you want (GUI-)autodiscovery I would strongly suggest you take a look at check_mk because it just might be exactly what youre looking for. Technically its a nagios plugin, but its really its entirely own monitoring solution, that just happens to run on top of the nagios core (possibly the icinga2 core eventually) that features autodiscovery, configuration via GUI (theres hardly any need to edit files if thats appealing to you). You can even get check_mk by installing OMD, which eliminates 95% of the setup time. you just install OMD, configure like 5-10 things in a matter of minutes and you got yourself a running check_mk installation.
Zabbix has done well for us over the last 2-3 years. There has yet to be a piece of hardware/server/device that I can't monitor with zabbix. There is a learning curve, but its well worth the time.
hi adamb,
Are you using zabbix in any agentless way? like snmp or nmap?
And another question, do you use autodiscovery feature?
For example, properly with Proxmox (is this forum right?), can be possible in a easy way to point zabbix to a Proxmox host and complete discover (or most possible) the host and VMs (VZ and KVM)?
Thanks for sharing your experience.
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I am using both agents and snmp. For my linux box's I use the agent because there is just so much more that can be done. I use snmp for routers, switches and various server room sensors.
Unfortunately I don't use auto discovery. I simply setup a base template then add hosts to the template. Adding SNMP builder is a ton of help also. Auto discovery should work as long as the devices are on the network and accessible over the agent or snmp. Good luck!
Using Zabbix here, hard learning curve, but lots of stuff and control. Nagios and derivatives is a no-way ATM. 
Zabbix will be much easier to config in your environment. It will also have more graphing capabilities and a simpler GUI. Nagios, on the other hand, will have the largest ecosystem on plug-ins as long as you don't mind very technical configs. Nagios is by far the most widely used monitoring system and allows you to leverage useful third party tools like PagerDuty and BigPanda. PagerDuty allows you to set up specific routing and escalation rules, so the right person is notified at the right time. BigPanda sits on top of Nagios and compresses the alerts into manageable incidents to reduce your noise and mean time to resolution.
PagerDuty- https://www.pagerduty.com/docs/guides/nagios-integration-guide/
BigPanda- https://bigpanda.io/integrations/nagios-the-alternative-to-a-flood-of-alerts
PagerDuty- https://www.pagerduty.com/docs/guides/nagios-integration-guide/
BigPanda- https://bigpanda.io/integrations/nagios-the-alternative-to-a-flood-of-alerts
+1 to Observium !
if you think of expanding your knowledge over the time by not only passing only through "quick install guide" of it and actually really spending time to configure and understand all it's components as well as getting the agent monitoring apps or even write custom you'll get to this conclusion for sure.
my 2 cents.
if you think of expanding your knowledge over the time by not only passing only through "quick install guide" of it and actually really spending time to configure and understand all it's components as well as getting the agent monitoring apps or even write custom you'll get to this conclusion for sure.
my 2 cents.
It really depends on your needs, each one has its benefits over the other one.
Here, check this a comparison between Nagios and Zabbix, along with another solution, Pandora FMS, which looks kind of promising.
http://www.edugeek.net/blogs/victormadrid/2275-nagios-zabbix-pandora-fms-comparison.html
Good luck!
Here, check this a comparison between Nagios and Zabbix, along with another solution, Pandora FMS, which looks kind of promising.
http://www.edugeek.net/blogs/victormadrid/2275-nagios-zabbix-pandora-fms-comparison.html
Good luck!
hi,
found that thread and want to give my comments too:
I used for a long time Nagios (6 years), than Icinga1 (5 years) (old company) (with pnp4nagios / nagvis / Centreon / check_mk ...) and since a few month Icinga2 as private monitoring. At my new company we use Zabbix (2.2 than 2.3) as the primary monitoring solution. The reason why they choosen Zabbix instead of Icinga* was, that Zabbix has graphs included. I used Zabbix now for over 1 year and can say: I never hated a monitoring solution so much. Sure, the old Nagios was not the best, Icinga1 fixes a lot of problem, but Zabbix is just a pain for me
For our new environment with two datacenters with ~30 Proxmox server (Ceph/Hypervisor) and everything what is needed, I created a new monitoring solution with Icinga2 (Icingaweb2), Grafana and InfluxDB and Puppet is the glue. It costs me also a lot of time (man weeks now) to get everything working for all scenarios, but that solution is much faster with rolling out new checks, than Zabbix. Also the DB is only needed for getting the actual state on our dashboard and the Icingaweb2. In the worst case, we don't need it (the core works, also with notification ...).
And what is for me also very important: the damn good and very active community around Icinga/Nagios.
So my summary is:
found that thread and want to give my comments too:
I used for a long time Nagios (6 years), than Icinga1 (5 years) (old company) (with pnp4nagios / nagvis / Centreon / check_mk ...) and since a few month Icinga2 as private monitoring. At my new company we use Zabbix (2.2 than 2.3) as the primary monitoring solution. The reason why they choosen Zabbix instead of Icinga* was, that Zabbix has graphs included. I used Zabbix now for over 1 year and can say: I never hated a monitoring solution so much. Sure, the old Nagios was not the best, Icinga1 fixes a lot of problem, but Zabbix is just a pain for me
- The Interface is very annoying, because jumping all the time between config and viewing
- In a few more words: I often want to see the "problem" details and get the config, that I don't want. Also get the graph configuration, instead the graph itself. I mean: I don't like the Interface as it is not clearly what is a "view" and what is "configuration". But it is more a personal learning problem.
- Zabbix has a lot of builtin checks, that are only usable directly from the Zabbix server or Zabbix proxy itself.
- For example: all active checks like SNMP, Web scenarios and co doesn't work with the Zabbix agent. So in my cases I have to create a lot of workarounds for checks, where is no Zabbix server/proxy and it is a pain, if you have a lot of them, like SNMP with an APC or switches.
- I don't like monitoring daemons, that needs a database for working. That is an personal thing from me, because a monitoring tool should have very less dependencies. I saw a lot problems, where the database itself was the problem for many reasons. Zabbix itself has also a special problem with database partitions, as it doesn't like the summer time changes.
- Tha graphs from Zabbix looks like 2000 and it is also not possible with the GUI to create one graph with different hosts. That is only possible with the adhoc graph (can't saved) and via API.
- My favorite message: "became not supported / became supported" .... :-/
For our new environment with two datacenters with ~30 Proxmox server (Ceph/Hypervisor) and everything what is needed, I created a new monitoring solution with Icinga2 (Icingaweb2), Grafana and InfluxDB and Puppet is the glue. It costs me also a lot of time (man weeks now) to get everything working for all scenarios, but that solution is much faster with rolling out new checks, than Zabbix. Also the DB is only needed for getting the actual state on our dashboard and the Icingaweb2. In the worst case, we don't need it (the core works, also with notification ...).
And what is for me also very important: the damn good and very active community around Icinga/Nagios.
So my summary is:
- As usefull monitoring solution for small systems: take a look on Monit
- For more, take a look on Wato with Icinga1 as backend and check_mk (check_mk is awesome)
- For bigger systems, use Icinga2 with Icingaweb2 and the Director plugin. To get graphs, use Grafana with Graphite or Influxdb.
- Use Zabbix ony, if you like the philosophy and may Grafana too, with the zabbix-datasource to get nicer graphs.